[Opensim-users] Speaking of Content Theft, How About Our Own Backyard?

[Karen Palen]

I think that reflects the situation in the larger world though.

Just because we create artificial "metaverses" does not mean that we are totally isolated from the problems of the world!

In this case that includes things like content theft and the difficulty of watermarking products. Still in the real world "watermarks" of various types have proven a useful tool if not a complete solution.

Specifically in the commercial world, piracy is minimised by management's realization of the penalties involved and the fact that you must sell a product in some way and at some level. That requirement makes it impossible to hide behind a screen of anonymity and will also expose pirated content quite quickly in a successful product.

The result is that you find small "fly by night" counterfeiters, but any companies larger than a "mom and pop" size are very careful about IP issues.

That being said, it is extremely hard to evaluate the actual worth of an invention or creation. In my experience the inventors (or creators) are the very worst people to make that evaluation!

Many years ago I worked in the Motorola Patent Dept. At the time Motorola SPS had approx. 1500 active patents, but only 6 produced over 99% of the royalties! These produced over $250M/ year though!

You should be able to find the current statistics on the USPTO web site, but when I was practising only about 1 patent in every thousand earned enough to repay the $20K cost of obtaining the patent!

About 1 in 10,000 would produce enough royalties to repay all of the R&D costs associated with the product. Of course that did not count the profit from manufacturing and selling the invention which was often far greater!

About one in 100,000 would yield enough royalties to make someone "rich for life".

On the other hand of the top 10 US awards from lawsuits, 5 were from patents!

The average patent case had $5M "at issue" and billed $500K in legal fees!

Big money by anyone's standards.

Sadly the model of someone making "one big invention" then living off it for life has only proven workable for the "patent trolls" who abuse the system by claiming to invent things that they simply could not have invented. There are many ways to do this, but it takes time and money to overturn the bogus patent.

It is worth noting that patent trolls are not restricted to software patents by any means! However software patents do have the problem that until recently major advances in the art were kept secret and very poorly documented in open literature. This makes it very hard to overturn the utterly absurd patents that make the headlines.

This has a lot to do with underfunding the patent office (Reagan administration) so they have trouble getting and keeping first rate staff.

Interesting background I hope, but hardly something that we will fix in our corner of the world!

Karen

--- On Wed, 2/24/10, Master_Mirage <mirage123 at verizon.net> wrote:

> From: Master_Mirage <mirage123 at verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: [Opensim-users] Speaking of Content Theft, How About Our Own  Backyard?
> To: opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
> Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 6:24 PM
> 
> Yes i agree and its not money thats rewarded here. There
> are many ways to
> offer something to a user that do not involve money. I only
> mention it as to
> point out what users did and tend todo when there is no
> reward/goal.
> The bigger problem is to assure the users that whatever
> thay make is fairly
> safe and the system has ways to reject exports of its
> content or at least
> make it trackable in someway. We dont have any tools like
> that yet.
> 
> 
> Karen Palen wrote:
> > 
> > As open source software shows there are more ways to
> reward a creator than
> > paying them money!
> > 
> > I would think that attribution is the very minimum
> that we should all
> > expect!
> > 
> > Karen
> > 
> > --- On Wed, 2/24/10, Tarak Kutther <tarakk at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > 
> >> From: Tarak Kutther <tarakk at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [Opensim-users] Speaking of Content
> Theft, How About Our Own 
> >> Backyard?
> >> To: opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
> >> Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 4:14 PM
> >> Frankly everything I make in SL ro OSGrid
> >> is free, full permissions. Generally when I box
> them, the
> >> boxes include separate full perm copies of scripts
> and
> >> textures. I find that gets over my concerns of
> people
> >> copying my work - I'm just thrilled to see others
> >> getting a use of it and modifying it - if someone
> wants to
> >> rebrand and sell it, thats OK, good luck to them -
> I've
> >> got plenty of other Ideas and designs that are on
> the boil.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On 25 February 2010 03:14, John
> >> Mieske <johnmieske at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> 
> >> Ok I think there is a missunderstanding here. i'm
> not
> >> saying anything about the legalities of it as you
> are. I am
> >> saying this is what happens..  Again, if I don't
> care
> >> for something to get stolen then i'll put it out
> there,
> >> otherwise I am wasting time to secure it. You can
> never
> >> secure anything you put on the net.. bottom line
> as I repeat
> >> that if someone wants anything on this planet bad
> enough,
> >> they can eventually succeed at it.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On a positive note though, if you can sue the
> >> guy / gal then hey, :: dances :: here comes the
> money.. here
> >> comes the money...  hahahahaha
> >> 
> >> john
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 1:12 PM,
> >> Michael Cortez <mcortez at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> 
> >> On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 2:09
> >> PM, Len Brown <lenwbrown at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> >      Sadly, there's not a single thing
> she can
> >> do.
> >> 
> >> >
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Actually, technically there is.  Every writer or
> >> photographer since
> >> 
> >> copyright laws went into affect can file a lawsuit
> against
> >> anyone who
> >> 
> >> plagiarizes their content and since the
> introduction of the
> >> DMCA they
> >> 
> >> have a certain level of recourse in compelling the
> service
> >> providers
> >> 
> >> that host infringing material to reveal what
> identify
> >> information they
> >> 
> >> have on file for someone illegitimately using
> their
> >> copy-written
> >> 
> >> material.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> It's probably not worth the cost of the time and
> effort
> >> needed for it
> >> 
> >> to come to fruition, and it would likely only
> result in the
> >> offenders
> >> 
> >> removing her copy-written material with no way of
> getting
> >> monetary
> >> 
> >> damages or recouping legal fees.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> on Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 5:57 PM John Mieske <johnmieske at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> 
> >> > three years ago, I started to just give
> >> stuff away. I realized there is no way to secure
> >> 
> >> > your items you try to sell in SL or in
> anything online
> >> social network now days. Not
> >> 
> >> > enough money in it and pirateers will
> always.. and I
> >> do mean ALWAYS find a way if
> >> 
> >> > they want it bad enough. The way I personally
> look at
> >> it, if you don't mind your stuff
> >> 
> >> > getting stolen then put it out there,
> otherwise your
> >> just wasting time trying to secure
> >> 
> >> > it.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> For some reason I have never really been able to
> >> agree with this
> >> 
> >> particular point of view.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Photographers, writers, music, radio, television
> and movie
> >> producers
> >> 
> >> have all been subject to people copying their
> content,
> >> using it in
> >> 
> >> ways they never intended, giving free copies away,
> selling
> >> duplicates,
> >> 
> >> or even plagiarizing, often without the original
> creator
> >> getting
> >> 
> >> credit.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Yet for some reason when someone fails at any of
> the
> >> businesses
> >> 
> >> associated with these types of products, the fact
> that
> >> their
> >> 
> >> intellectual property can (and will be) illegally
> copied,
> >> is rarely
> >> 
> >> cited as the primary reason for failure to be
> profitable,
> >> become well
> >> 
> >> known, or help out your fellow man (depending on
> your
> >> original goals.)
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> With proper marketing making it easy for people to
> find
> >> you, with good
> >> 
> >> pricing so that your competitive, with support
> that makes
> >> it clear
> >> 
> >> it's better to use your direct products rather
> than
> >> knock offs or
> >> 
> >> copies, with continued innovation of new products
> and
> >> services it is
> >> 
> >> possible to not only make a profit, but to make a
> living
> >> producing
> >> 
> >> material than can (and will be) stolen.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Yes, I'll admit there are many out there that wish
> they
> >> could
> >> 
> >> create/invent a handful of items and through the
> patent,
> >> copyright, or
> >> 
> >> trademark laws be able to sell their creation
> without the
> >> associated
> >> 
> >> business costs of dealing with copy cats and
> thieves, so
> >> that they can
> >> 
> >> make profit from their intellectual property in
> perpetuity.
> >>  But the
> >> 
> >> simple fact of the matter is, that type of
> business climate
> >> started
> >> 
> >> slipping away in the 40's and is increasingly
> difficult
> >> to achieve.
> >> 
> >> Especially in a digital market place, where it is
> >> relatively easy for
> >> 
> >> your IP to be stolen.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> For me it's not really so much "if you don't
> >> mind your stuff getting
> >> 
> >> stolen" -- I don't really think anyone likes to
> >> have their stuff
> >> 
> >> stolen.  For me it's more about recognizing the
> market
> >> place, and the
> >> 
> >> requirements and repercussions of doing business
> in that
> >> market, and
> >> 
> >> making an informed decision to compete or not.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On a personal note, I think a lot of the artists
> could make
> >> quite a
> >> 
> >> bit of additional profit bylicensing their
> textures and
> >> creations via
> >> 
> >> a normal web site, using paypal, that does not
> directly
> >> target SL or
> >> 
> >> any particular Grid.  I have for example, tracked
> down an
> >> artist that
> >> 
> >> sells textures via TRU (who has a strict no non-SL
> policy),
> >> and found
> >> 
> >> that the artist licensing their own textures via
> the web
> >> for use
> >> 
> >> *anywhere* and doesn't even mention SL on their
> >> website.  The web site
> >> 
> >> happens to directly mention Poser/Daz3D, game and
> 3D
> >> content
> >> 
> >> developers.  I was more than willing to pay
> $30/USD to buy
> >> their
> >> 
> >> texture pack outside SL, and as per the terms of
> the
> >> license I can use
> >> 
> >> those anywhere (including in SL or OSGrid) as long
> as I
> >> don't
> >> 
> >> redistribute them as a texture pack -- I'm free to
> use
> >> them on my own
> >> 
> >> creations, even if I'm selling them.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Cheers,
> >> 
> >> --
> >> 
> >> Michael
> >> 
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> 
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> >> 
> >> Opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
> >> 
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> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> -- 
> >> John Mieske / Winword Exonar
> >> http://johnmieske.org
> >> Space Grid Station
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
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> >> 
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> >> 
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> >> 
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> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
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